Vol 3, No 27
Articles in this issue
- "An Essex Member", writing again from "eight miles from anywhere", answers the charge that the bicycle makes men selfish and that bicycles are useless things by describing a marketing run into Inverary for bread and sugar. The road down was real small-stone macadam of the kind MacAdam invented, nothing like the pot-holed Lea Bridge Road, but the return uphill with a bag weighing an ordinary knapsack and a half took far longer.
- W. R. Sewell's comic account of four L.B.C. men and "Otters", the two Newmans, Cleaver and himself, rowing from Richmond Bridge through Teddington Lock to a picnic on a grassy bank at Halliford. Incidents include a bathe in the creek before the rustics, Cleaver's rabid urge to ram punts on the way back, a boatload of singing 'Arries at Hampton Court that prompts a digression on whether Balaam's ass could sing, and Hindley superintending the landing of a three-inch fish at Surbiton.
- No. IV, "A Pre-Historic General Meeting", reprints the minutes of the L.B.C. annual general meeting of 10th January 1877 at 44, Pall Mall, Mr. James Inwards in the chair, with a balance in hand of £7 7s. 5d. New rules banned riding on footpaths in club runs and races, required candidates to attend two meets on probation, and forbade any member representing the Club at a race meeting without the Captain's permission; a fifth, Western division was created with its boundaries set out, the captaincy was made elective instead of raced for, and M. D. Rucker, Jun. was elected Captain by a majority of eight votes.
- No. I, "The Inner Man": a hungry rider argues that appreciation of the beautiful depends entirely on how long since one's last meal. He recalls a well-fed companion who dismounted to admire a sunset and called him a "barbarous, unappreciative, phlegmatic idiot"; the indestructible "biscuit" served at the Half-way House between Canterbury and Dover, carried in his pocket ever since as an infallible cure for hunger; and the "hard" man who withered him with "Can't you ride forty miles without having a liquor?"
- The pair leave Molmen past a landlord lying in wait to watch them shoot a boulder-strewn pitch, cross the summit of the pass and descend the finely engineered windings of the Bear's Cliff above the cascading Rauma, stopping at the Lower Slettafos and the Vermedalfos. Past Flatmark and Horgheim, under the six-thousand-foot Troltinderne and the still unclimbed Romsdal Horn, they reach Naes, forty miles from Molmen, then fish the fjord with the boatman Peterssen before a difficult transfer of the machines by small boat at Molde onto the Lofoten for Bergen.
- Dismisses the rumour that H. L. Cortis means to turn professional and make a fortune in Australia as the work of men who dislike him for being so much their superior, and doubts another Keen v. Cortis mixed race could be arranged after the Athletic Association's recent decision without the amateur losing social status. Points out that nobody had noticed Cortis rode the fastest three miles yet known at Surbiton, his 15th, 16th and 17th in 8 min. 46 4/5 sec., and the fastest four, 11 min. 43 sec., beating both his own bests and Keen's.
- Two weeks of tabulated meets. On the 18th the N.E. and both S.E. divisions converge on Purfleet, the N.W. goes to Harefield, and the W. and S.W. meet for Windsor; the following week brings Chingford for the N.E., Shenley for the N.W. and W., a circular run for the S.W. from the "Griffin," Kingston, and Godstone for the Croydon and Blackheath divisions.
- The September 11th reports are all rain. Three N.E. men rode the usual route to Chigwell and Abridge and spun home through pouring rain, reaching Highbury thoroughly soaked; three N.W. men made for Ickenham but turned back short of Harrow, about 18 miles; the S.W. Captain found nobody at Hanworth Park and gave up after half an hour against a dead head wind. Fourteen S.E. men, however, rode to East Grinstead through one continued downpour, met P. J. Wheeler and W. d'A. Crofton of the Dark Blue Club at Caterham Junction, and sat down to tea at Mrs. Payne's "Railway Hotel" in borrowed dry clothes.
- The Woodbury-type of the L.B.C. v. C.U.Bi.C. competitors in the last issue was printed from a negative taken and kindly supplied by Mr. Trotter, and the Editor thanks Messrs. Jennings, Oswald, Chippindale, W. T. Thorn and Trotter for helping insert it. Mr. Trotter's S.E. photographs are now ready and will be forwarded by the Editor at 6d. per copy.
- R. M. Gruggen continues from page 109: the bicycling proper ended at Bagnères de Bigorre, where the "Hotel de France" was clean but its contracted-out meals impunctual, and the table d'hôte produced a tea-carrying Yorkshirewoman whose party's advice let them dispense with a guide at fifteen francs a day by keeping a telegraph wire in sight all the way up the Pic du Midi, 9,439 feet and second only to the Maladetta. They rode the Adour valley from Bagnères to Grip, where the bicycles were carried upstairs into a bedroom for safekeeping before the four-hour walk to the Hotel du Pic du Midi above the snow line.
- Surrey B.C. autumn race meeting at Kennington Oval (Sept. 18th), a Druids B.C. one mile open at Stamford Bridge (Sept. 25th), and the L.A.C. autumn (Oct. 2nd) and winter (Nov. 6th) meetings, both at Stamford Bridge.
- F. W. Nicholson of Putney again offers his 56-inch all-bright "Humber" light roadster at £13, and a new entry headed "Mind the Bobbies…Why ride in darkness?" offers a nearly new large-sized "Salisbury" head-lamp that cost 12s. 6d. for 7s. 6d., from A. Koch, 107, Philbeach Gardens, first come, first served.
- "L'Homme Qui Rit" reports the Norfolk v. Suffolk inter-county match of six men a side from Norwich to Ipswich, forty-five miles, won easily by Suffolk with Popplewell first home despite a fall; that forty-five L.B.C. men have called at the East Grinstead "Railway Hotel" since Aug. 1st; and the Captain's tip for riding a bad hill, arriving too late for the Reigate trial, "get a friend to loose his bull at you in a field adjoining the road," with sisters and cousins stationed at the summit. Also identifies Messrs. Chippindale and R. G. Francis as the Norwegian couple, announces Cortis's repeat attempt on twenty miles in the hour at Surbiton on the 22nd, and foresees the Committee appointing an official "Stray Noter" to discourage "effusions of irresponsible frivolity".
- A letter signed "The Sister's Sister", dated September 11th, preserving a pun: a member's sister, told that a race was to take place that day to East Grinstead and seeing the rain coming down, remarked that "the men had better grin instead and stay at home."
- "Verax" is told his communication seems hardly appropriate to the columns; R. G. Francis is asked to send the remainder of his Tour; and "M." is regretfully refused insertion.
- Standing notice that contributions must be addressed to "The Editor, L.B.C. Gazette, 35, Eastcheap, E.C.", bear the author's name, be written on one side of the paper only and reach the office by Wednesday morning; Messrs. Darling supply badge-stamped portfolios at 2s. and back numbers cost 1d. each.